Reporting changes

Ashley Snow · October 21

I noticed how Blackbaud updated the reporting. Now when you run a report you can only save and generate, export as PDF, export to excel, or export to word. Then when you generate the report, you can't tell if it's generating in the background or not until you receive a notification that it's available to download.

Sometimes I have to run a report many times over and over - I don't want to save it each time, but it's also very cumbersome to have to download a PDF every.single.time I run it.

I also don't like how you can't see if the report is running anymore. With the number of tasks I'm working on I often forget if I clicked generate on a report or not. If I'm running a balance sheet that takes 20 minutes to run, I like to see the progress. Now I just have to hope it pops up after 20 minutes. I am worried that this will result in clicking generate more than once and having the process take longer because it's trying to generate multiple of the same reports at once.

Please bring back the report status lower right-hand corner screen!

Also please bring back being able to just run generate your report and see it without having to download or save it every time. I do like how I have the option to export it straight to PDF or excel, but I don't always need to do that.

Please please please change this back to how it was ran before!

Nancy Cowan · October 21

Adding another please please please to this. It's awful to keep generating a file to download when all I want is a quick view that I will discard.

Bradley Gustafson · October 22

I totally agree. Yesterday I created a new report, and there was an error in one of my columns. In the previous system, I would get an error message right away letting me know. This time I waited for twenty minutes for a report that should take less than a minute, not knowing there was an error.

Ashley Snow · October 22

It really adds so much unnecessary time and adds a lot of downloads to my computer for no reason! I hope they decide to make a change. I like the feature of being able to export directly to PDF, but would love to get back the progress window and being able to view the report on FENXT without downloading it.

Melanie Tickel · October 27

I agree, reports are taking too long to generate and not knowing the status.

Please bring back the report status lower right-hand corner screen!

Also please bring back being able to just run generate your report and see it without having to download or save it every time. I do like how I have the option to export it straight to PDF or excel, but I don't always need to do that.

Lisa Stover · October 28

I echo everything that has been shared above. I would imagine people are running the same report multiple times since there is no way to monitor the status. This would likely be an additional drain on the servers. I would also love for reports to not be embedded under Analysis.

Jeff Trzaska · October 28

Pilling on. Everyone here utterly hates the newest improvement. In addition to what everyone else says, it seems like BB can only run one report per organization at a time. If I run a report and in the intervening half hour until it spits out, if I try to edit any other report template I just get the green buffering dot until it says "oops something went wrong, you used Financial Edge". Also if I run a report, it takes my coworker longer to put in deposits since BB only has one hamster per customer.

Carrie Mendoza · October 28

I agree with all of the above and also add that there is no way to stop a report from running if you just right click and select generate pdf on a report (but then realize the report has no GL filtering and is massive and makes your system so slow). If a progress window is added back, please give users the ability to move it so it doesn't cover up what you need to see on the screen.

Dan Hout-Reilly · October 30

I completely agree. Blackbaud has easily doubled my workload trying to generate and download reports! And I can't tell if I actually clicked the report to generate or not.

Suzie Capps · October 30

Agree with all the above! I feel like we are now going backwards in terms of efficiency….

Deborah Sultan · October 30

I agree with all the above. When we run income statements for all our departments, it now takes twice as long as previously.

Susan Dearborn · October 31

My team prefers the ability to see our reports on screen, especially when we only need to see the bottom line that we tied out before generating other reports. For time and efficiency's sake, and in complete agreement with previous posters, please return to the previous reporting options and abilities.

Patricia Nowak · October 31

I have found that if you use the Generate option (not save and generate) and choose one of the four options in the submenu: PDF, Excel, Excel data, or Word the request for the report to generate will start. Once the report is completed running a pop up menu with a link to the report will show up in the upper right corner area of your screen that you can then open and review and choose to save, or not. If you use the "Save and generate" your report set up box/menu will close, which can be frustrating.

Heather Craig · October 31

Agree! So often I just want a quick look at a report without having to download.

Bo Baggett · November 3

I run a lot of one-off reports that I have no intention of saving. For example, I just need to check GL details to make sure certain entries have been made. I really don't want to have to download a report just to looks something up. Please bring back the 'Run' option for reports.

Dan Hout-Reilly · November 3

I just realized this is now applying to my deposit reports as well. We print deposit reports after every batch, which we now need to download and open first, then print, then close and delete off our computer. So many additionaly steps! What an efficiency drain!

Sylvia Cook · November 3

Now that I have the report update that people are mentioned, I can agree it is terrible. 👎️

Justin Quinn · November 3

Absolutely idiotic changes here. I don't want to download EVERY report I generate. I just want to run the report and view it the majority of the time. I can easily choose to download it if I need to. Why were these changes made?! I already have to open multiple tabs to run more than one report at a time. Now I don't even know if a report is generating half the time and no message pops up showing that it's completed, so I have to close the dialog box just to open the notifications area. Who is testing this software for you? If it's even being tested, surely these changes couldn't have received positive feedback.

Mary Ryberg · November 4

GET RID OF THIS NEW PROCESS it is terrible - not efficient at all and it is huge waste of time

Cara Lajewski · November 6

I will add, as well, that the download feature dropping into notifications is absolutely inefficient. While I used to be able to download reports as they were produced, thus disappearing the notification box, now I have to have both my notifications open as well as my downloaded items folder so that I can see which I have actually downloaded. You also can't go too quickly through because after hitting "download" the pop up then shows up on my internet browser, resulting in a document opening more often than not, which I do no need at that time. The items also do not disappear from the notification after downloading, so I have to track each item that I need to download. Serious waste of time, and not an improvement from the previous interface for downloads.

Heather Craig · November 7

Anyone know how to change the default if you Save and Generate from pdf to an Excel spreadsheet? Why a financial reporting system would default to pdf is beyond my understanding. We run very few reports to just look at them.

Thyda Thach · November 9

I Do not like this new reporting process at all. I have to wait for the pdf report notification to come up then i can download the report, but if you don't click the notification, it goes away after 4 second, this is very frustrating from a user point of view. It a BAD design from blackbaud.

Mikayla Owens · November 10

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/308418#Comment_308418

I agree with all but especially this - I do not see any benefit for excel reports opening in internet browser rather than just becoming a downloaded document in file explorer once we click on it. This has just added more steps to getting our report.

Ashley Snow · November 10

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/308443#Comment_308443

If you're referring to changing so that it doesn't open up Adobe Acrobat as default, and will instead open up an internet browser web pdf you have to change the settings in Adobe Acrobat. Once you're in Adobe, if you click on Menu - then preferences - General - and uncheck the box that says "always open PDFs saved from the web". I am pretty sure this is what fixed that issue for me. Good luck!

Roberta A. Gilbert · November 12

Agree, agree, agree with all of this! Most of the budget and Fin. Stmt reports I run, I choose Excel Data, to send to auditors, colleagues, etc. But now I am forced to download a PDF by default, before I can quickly eyeball the bottom line, and THEN I have to go back and download it a 2nd time as Excel Data. As everyone else in this thread has said, this is a complete waste of time, and doubles the time it takes to prepare a group of reports for someone.

The only area in AP where we need PDF is when printing checks, and even that function has disappeared into the ether. Gone is the question about whether the checks actually printed correctly or not - FE simply assumes they did, and half the time we're still looking for the PDF (which used to pop up on the screen) so that we can print them in the first place. For those of us who are used to keyboard commands, it's impossible to use Ctrl-P if there is nothing displayed on the screen to print - and yet FE tells us in "Pre-Payment" report that everything printed. It's insane.

Roberta A. Gilbert · November 12

A few things are controllable in the browser settings. If you don't want your Excel files to auto-open in your browser, you can tell your browser, in the options or settings, which application to use (Excel, Libredocs, whatever you have) by default instead. Or you can tell your browser to always download files to a certain location, or to simply ask you where to save it, every time you generate a new report.

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/308483#Comment_308483

Rena Lolley · November 19

Agree!!!

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